I grew up in Cumberland, RI and do not live that far from there now. One of my favorite things to do was to walk on the grounds of the Cumberland Library. The library now sits on the former site of a monastery that burned down in 1950. The town converted the ruins to house a playground, and walking trails.
When I was younger there were horses and one of the walking trails had "exercise stations". Sadly, the horses are gone and most of the exercise stations have disappeared.
There is a bit of history in the woods as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Men%27s_Misery
I do have to say I know nothing about this war. I do have a very exciting looking scholarly tome that talks in depth about the war, but I haven't gotten to it in my reading pile yet.
When I was younger, my mother used to take me and my brothers there in the summer and we were allowed one VHS movie each week. This was such a treat. I am eight and ten years older than my brothers and most of the movies we owned were "baby" movies. Of course, I was not allowed to rent say "Hellraiser" but this afforded me the opportunity to see movies that I would enjoy more than say watching "101 Dalmatians" for the 5555th time. ("101 Dalmatians" is a fine film. But when you are 12 and you have watched it so many times you realize that Pongo has about four more spots than Perdita and you can recite the whole movie because you watched it 4 times a day for the past five years, it grates on you.)
When my husband and I started dating, I took him walking on some on the longer trails. Now, it is a solo experience. I used to take my dog, but she had to have back surgery and can no longer do the trails. I love walking for hours deep into the woods. It is so incredibly peaceful. You actually can walk out to a point where you cannot hear cars or see houses. It is so therapeutic to leave your phone behind and just walk with your water bottle and enjoy clean air. I cannot wait to take my son out on some of the shorter trails this summer. You can see rabbits and turtles, which for a kid who lives in the city, are pretty exotic. I have never seen deer, but you can hear animals running away from you as you walk and I imagine deer are watching us.
This is where we went today. I was hoping we could actually walk, but there is a storm brewing off Cape Cod that made it quite windy in Cumberland today.
Instead we went to the Cumberland Library. Well, first we went to the Friends of the Library Bookstore. We got quite a good haul.
Some of the books are for me. Wilkie Collins and Agatha Christie are for me to pour over and relish. I figured he can "grow into" The Little Prince, Bridge to Terabithia and Trumpet of the Swan. The Golden Fleece is to fuel his imagination. The Paddington book of course, is for now. No book is over a dollar and they have quite a good selection of books.
Walking around the library was more of a chore than it should have been. He decided after the bookstore that we were kinda done. I knew that I wanted to read some Kate Morton books so I took all they had. We went to the children's section where I selected, Is Your Momma a Llama, Daddy Kisses, and What's Wrong Little Pookie (I love you, Sandra Boynton). My son was going to get a DVD, although the library still has a healthy selection of VHS tapes, I want to restrict use on my VCR. I don't know if I can still buy head cleaner for it. At the moment I tried to shepherd him over to the movies, he spotted some table toys for kids. He thought grabbing Lego bricks and hurtling them to the floor was a fun activity so we had to cut our visit short.
We actually go to the library a lot. We try to go every three weeks because that is how long you can take out books for. I like that in the winter it is a safe, quiet place that my son can walk around. We just haven't been to the Cumberland Library in a while because it was a nasty winter and we have libraries closer to the house. Do you take your children to the library?
